Sunday, September 15, 2013

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Seventeenth Sunday
after Pentecost (C—Proper 19)

September 15, 2013

Text: Luke 15:1-10

“Jesus
sinners doth receive” (LSB 609:1).This
fact is maddening to Pharisees, but the greatest comfort to us who believe what
we have just said of ourselves: that we are by nature sinful and unclean; that
we have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and
by what we have left undone; that we justly deserve God’s present punishment
now, in this earthly life, and His eternal punishment in hell.Jesus receives even you and me.And that’s grace.That is God freely bestowing upon us His
undeserved kindness and love on account of the suffering and death of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who is now risen from the dead, lives, and reigns to all eternity.Jesus took our sin and death upon
Himself.He became a man, became flesh,
born of the Virgin Mary, that He might do this very thing.He takes it all upon Himself and bears it to
Golgotha, where He suffers our condemnation and dies our death.God’s justice must be satisfied.If our God is to be a just God, He cannot
simply sweep our sin under the rug and pretend it never happened.He must punish sin.Otherwise He hasn’t really done anything
about it.And so He does punish our sin.On the cross.God so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten Son.He sent His Son to take our place.That is grace.And now our God, our Jesus, receives sinners,
receives you, receives me, in His Kingdom, at His Table.And the angels and archangels and all the
company of heaven rejoice.

The
great scandal of all this is you didn’t do a thing to deserve it.In fact, you did anything and everything
possible to NOT deserve it.That’s what
you did.And so all the doing that
merits the forgiveness of sins and a seat at the Table is accomplished by Jesus
alone.For you.He does it all.“Well, there’s got to be more to it than
that,” we object.“Surely we have to do something.At least we have to choose to be Jesus’
disciple, dedicate our lives and our hearts to Him, clean up our act, stop
cussing, be better spouses and parents or children.”Now, don’t get me wrong.I’m all for cleaning up our language and our
behavior, and I’m certainly all for family values.But here’s the scandal: If you did all that…
If you dedicated your life and heart to living for Jesus, if nothing but
pristine pious language came from your mouth, you were the nicest and kindest
person anyone had ever met, generous with time and money, a fantastic husband
and father, wife and mother, son or daughter, the kind of person every one of
us wants to be… If you did all that and brought it before the throne of God for
His approval… you would be a Pharisee.The Pharisees were great people when judged by human standards.The problem is, they trusted in their own
goodness, their own religiosity, their piety, to earn God’s favor.And they were absolutely blind to their
sin.They were outwardly above reproach.But on the inside they were filled with the
same lust and hatred and selfishness as the rest of us poor schmucks.Jesus described them as whitewashed tombs:
beautiful on the outside, but inside full of the rot and stink of dead men’s
bones (Matt. 23:27).Jesus simply wasn’t
impressed by their outward righteousness.And that’s why they hated Him and sought to put Him to death.I mean, here they had done all this work,
meticulously keeping the Law of Moses and all sorts of man-made regulations
devised to put a hedge around the Law so that there would be no possibility of
transgressing it.And Jesus tells them
that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99
Pharisees and Scribes who need no repentance (Luke 15:7, 10)… or so they think!Jesus, contrary to every social and religious
scruple, goes to the sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the dregs of
society.He receives them, associates
with them, touches them.And He eats
with them.The dishonorable.The dirty.And this is really good news for us poor miserable sinners.He receives us!We’ve done nothing to deserve Jesus’
reception.And that’s just the
point.You can’t deserve it.You can do nothing to earn it.You cannot acquire it by your own efforts.
You can only have it bestowed upon you by God, in Christ, by grace.

The
sheep in Jesus’ parable could do nothing about being lost.Even if the sheep resolved within himself to
behave better and be dedicated to the Shepherd, he wouldn’t magically be
transported back to the flock.Actually,
what happens when sheep become lost is that they are completely incapacitated
with fear.They can’t retrace their
steps.They can’t walk.They can’t even stand.That’s why when you see pictures of Jesus as
the Good Shepherd, He’s carrying the sheep, like the guy on the front of your
bulletin who is carrying the sheep on his shoulders.He has to.The sheep has no ability to come back on his own.Then there’s the coin.What can the coin possibly do about finding
itself?All a lost coin can do is lie
there in the dust and filth of the house until it is found.That’s you, beloved.You’re the incapacitated sheep, the coin
laying in the filth, unable to do anything about it.But the good news is, Jesus is the Good
Shepherd who goes after the lost sheep until He finds it.He comes after you.He seeks you out, comes to you right where
you are, picks you up, and carries you home to His sheepfold.Jesus is the Bridegroom who sends His Bride,
the Church, the woman of the parable, to shine the light of the Holy Gospel
throughout the filthy house, to sweep away the dirt and the grime and find you.“I once was lost, but now am found,” as the
old hymn goes.Notice that the lost one
is purely passive.Who takes all the
initiative?Jesus does.He finds you where you are and He brings you
home.

That’s
the definition of repentance, by the way.To be brought back.Jesus gets
all the credit for your repentance, too.He repents you, so to
speak.You don’t come back on your own
initiative any more than the sheep comes back to the Shepherd or the coin comes
back to the woman.He comes and gets
you.He brings you.Grace.And then He throws a Feast for you.Now, imagine this: Dumb old sheep wanders away.It’s his own stupid fault.The Shepherd has to trudge through the hills
and ravines to find the sheep and then carry the smelly animal back to the
flock.And what does He do when He gets
back?He throws a party in the sheep’s
honor!I mean, it’s absurd.That’s what Jesus does for you.This is the party.This is the Table He has set (the altar).For you.Because there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents
than over 99 righteous persons who think they need no repentance.Indeed, heaven joins us, quite literally,
here at this Table, at this Meal, with this Host who here gives us His true
Body and Blood for our forgiveness, life, and salvation.

“The saying is trustworthy,” writes St.
Paul, “and deserving of full acceptance,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the
foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15; ESV).Paul,
the Pharisee, who stood by giving his approval while Stephen was stoned to
death (Acts 7:58, 8:1), who persecuted the Church of God, arresting Christians
and bringing them bound to Jerusalem, upon this man God bestowed His grace in
Christ Jesus.He forgave Paul all His
sins, called Him to be baptized, to be a Christian, and in fact to be the great
Apostle to the Gentiles.The Chief of
sinners is forgiven all his sins.He is
declared a saint with the righteousness and holiness of Another, of Christ
Himself.Jesus sinners doth receive.And so you.Chief of sinners though you be, Jesus shed His blood for you.Jesus receives you here today at His
Table.Not because you deserve it.Not because He finds something in you that is
worthy of such a gift.But because He is
gracious and merciful.Because He loves
you.Because He’s given Himself into
death for you.In His death all your
sins are forgiven.And in your Baptism
into His death and resurrection, you are made a member of God’s family.You belong at the family Table.There is always a place for you here where
Jesus receives you, pierced hands outstretched. “Here is hope for all who
grieve: Jesus sinners doth receive.”In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.Amen.